Merge pull request scala#423 from alexander-myltsev/proposal-a_myltsev

GSoC'16 Proposal: Scala Compiler Plugin for Parser Combinators

Author: densh

gsoc/2016.md

@@ -208,6 +208,41 @@ construction.** Ideally, it should point to a compiler project you have written
 
 Supervised by [@sjrd](https://github.com/sjrd/)
 
+### Scala Compiler Plugin for Parser Combinators
+
+Parsing can be found everywhere in computing today: from log analysis to
+computer languages. Functional programming offers concise approach to
+parser generators development: a parsing grammar for generator is composed
+via higher-order functions -- [parser combinators](http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszgmh/monparsing.pdf).
+
+As a program, parser generator should be programmed easily and work fast.
+Popular parser generators in Scala ([Scala Combinator Parsers](https://github.com/scala/scala-parser-combinators),
+[parboiled2](http://parboiled2.org), [FastParse](https://github.com/lihaoyi/fastparse ),
+[PapaCarlo](http://lakhin.com/projects/papa-carlo/), etc.) can be much faster
+or have complications in development.
+
+Scala Combinator Parsers library is most concise. It is implemented as plain
+library in Scala. And because of that has few facilities for optimizations.
+
+parboiled2 drops off most of algebraic sanity, and leaves a programmer with
+imperative-style parsing and Value Stack. That causes type soundness bugs,
+clumsy code that is hard to debug, and bad error reporting. FastParse fixes
+most critical issues of parboiled2. But both lacks can’t perform cross-rules
+analysis and deep optimisations.
+
+The proposed solution requires users to use SBT build system with external plugin.
+Scala compiler plugin should rewrite Scala AST of a parser: compile high-level
+concise monadic Scala Combinator Parsers to highly-effective runtime code.
+
+The plugin would be written in Scala. Existing projects written in Scala
+are expected. Ideally you should have understanding of compilers in
+general and Scala compiler inner parts.
+
+Supervised by [@alexander-myltsev](https://github.com/alexander-myltsev),
+[a core contributor to parboiled2 during GSoC'2013](https://github.com/sirthias/parboiled2/commits?author=alexander-myltsev)
+and [biological names parser based or parboiled2](https://github.com/GlobalNamesArchitecture/gnparser/commits?author=alexander-myltsev)
+writing [notes sometimes in his blog](http://myltsev.com/tags/#parboiled2).
+
 ## ENSIME project ideas
 
 ENSIME is a JVM process that indexes your dependencies and understands your source code